Injuries for hooker Dylan Tierney-Martin and secondrow Darragh Murray are untimely but provide opportunity. <\/p>\n
Eoin de Buitl\u00e9ar, the younger brother of former wing Colm, is named in the frontrow alongside Billy Bohan and fit-again tighthead prop Finlay Bealham. He takes over from Sam Illo, who falls to the bench. <\/p>\n
Former Ireland under-20 hooker Mikey Yarr is set to make his Connacht debut off the bench, while Joe Joyce is promoted to the secondrow.<\/p>\n
There backline is unchanged from last weekend\u2019s 26-7 win over Munster, with Ben Murphy and Josh Ioane at halfback, Bundee Aki alongside Harry West in the centre, Shayne Bolton and Shane Jennings on the wings, with Sam Gilbert covering fullback.<\/p>\n
Edinburgh have made several changes for Friday\u2019s game. Captain Magnus Bradbury returns at number eight in place of Tom Currie, Marshall Sykes comes into the secondrow as Grant Gilchrist is ruled out with a finger injury. Tom Dodd also slots in at blindside flanker, with Glen Young moving into the secondrow alongside Sykes.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767177708414-69197743-5ee2-4403-b94c-9a36cd6b79cd.jpeg\"\/)
How Connacht are proving a stark contrast to reeling Munster<\/p>\n
Piers O\u2019Conor, a former Ireland under-19 who spent the 2024\/25 season at Connacht, is named at centre, with Mosese Tuipulotu at outside centre. O\u2019Conor has impressed at fullback in their last three games but switches to the midfield as Harry Paterson is restored at 15.<\/p>\n
He forms a potent backline with a couple of Lions in Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe, a try scorer on his return from injury last week, and a couple more in prop Pierre Schoeman and hooker Ewan Ashman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have looked a lot more dangerous the last few weeks,\u201d Connacht scrumhalf Murphy said of their Scottish opponents. \u201cThey are throwing the ball around a lot more. We know there is a serious threat and are taking it as seriously as it comes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s pressure on the game, there\u2019s no getting away from that. You either shy away from it or you walk into it headfirst. That\u2019s what we plan on doing. There is more of an embrace of pressure now in this group. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s going to be there. We know it\u2019s going to be the same again this week, but we now feel like we have got tools to combat that pressure and get into our flow. I think that\u2019s been a big plus for us this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
His halfback partner Ioane added: \u201cWe had some painful games, some close losses, games we should have won. But then came the victory over Glasgow (in February) and we also won our first interpro against Ulster (in March). <\/p>\n
\u201cThat sort of got into the boys\u2019 heads. Those were two teams at the top of the table that we were competing with. From there, it just became a habit. The whole year we have been training really hard and it\u2019s been cool to see the growth in the team. We have found some real confidence coming into the back end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
That will be tested rigorously at the Hive, especially if they allow Edinburgh to escape early on the scoreboard. The hosts have nothing tangible to play for and Connacht will want to challenge them with a hard-nosed and accurate performance. The visitors\u2019 need is greater and they might just hold sway.<\/p>\n
EDINBURGH:<\/b> H Paterson; D Graham, P O\u2019Conor, F Thomson, D van der Merwe; R Thompson, H Patterson; P Schoeman, E Ashman, O Blyth-Lafferty; M Sykes, G Young; T Dodd, F Douglas, M Bradbury (capt). Replacements: <\/b>J Blyth-Lafferty, B Venter, P Hill, C Hunter-Hill, E McVie, T Currie, C Shiel, J Brown. <\/p>\n
CONNACHT: <\/b>S Gilbert; S Jennings, H West, B Aki, S Bolton; J Ioane, B Murphy; B Bohan, E de Buitl\u00e9ar, F Bealham; J Joyce, J Murphy, C Prendergast (capt), S Hurley-Langton, S Jansen. Replacements: <\/b>M Yarr, P Dooley, S Illo, D O\u2019Connor, P Boyle, M Devine, J Carty, S Naughton.<\/p>\n
Referee:<\/b> A Barrett-Theron (SA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"URC, Round 18: Edinburgh v Connacht, Hive Stadium, Friday, 7.45pm \u2013 Live on TG4 & Premier Sports Six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":960930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,30722,1102,4884,712,140672,16,15,4510],"class_list":{"0":"post-960929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-connacht-rugby","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-scotland","13":"tag-stuart-lancaster","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-united-rugby-championship"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116577086454914973","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}